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Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand while drawing with the other? There are now more plastic flamingos in the world than real ones? Barry Manilow wrote the insurance jingle, “Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there…”?

I love amazing facts almost as much as I love music or my cat. But until this week, I had no idea my cat might love music, which now seems amazing if it’s a fact.

Enter David Teie, a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington and a pioneering researcher in what we might call “animal tunes.” After studying why humans have an emotional response to music — spoiler alert: it’s related to the sound heard in the womb of a mother’s pulse — Teie wondered about other species. He’s now on his way to becoming the Beethoven for listeners with tails.

Animal tunes starts with science. By studying vocalization and communication patterns, Teie modifies instruments to replicate the pitch and tonality of a species. He identifies the natural sounds animals are exposed to during critical stages of neurological development. Then he writes these “elements” into pieces of music.

Teie’s early research with cotton-top tamarins was a success. In an experiment at the University of Wisconsin, the tiny beasts got calm when listening to his “Relaxing Monkey Music.” They went bananas when the “Heavy Metal Monkey Music” turned the lab into a mosh pit. There was an emotional response.

But what about cats? Three of Teie’s early research songs, available on iTunes, were tested on felines. About 75 per cent of the sample cats responded.

Teie was on to something. So he recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to cover recording costs for even better cat music. The goal was to raise $20,000 by Nov. 28. By Tuesday, more than 8,800 backers had pledged more than $200,000. That’s a lot of cats no longer listening to Adele.

“Music for Cats” has officially shifted from research project to commercial enterprise. The first remastered track arrives next month. A full CD of original compositions is slated for February. With the overflow funding, there are also plans for “Music for Dogs” and “Music for Horses.”

Does it work? I tested the three original (and unpolished) tracks — “Cozmo’s Air,” “Rusty’s Ballad” and “Spook’s Ditty” — on Satchel, my 16-year-old Burmese. She oriented to the speaker. She looked confused. She yawned. She sniffed the air. She shot me a withering glance, as if to say, “Cat music? Really? What is your problem?”

Then she returned to snoozing.

The mix of “swish” and “purr” instruments, however, intrigued my wife. She shot me a look of delight, as if to say, “Why can’t we always listen to this? Is that harp playing 23 notes per second to emulate a purr?” So either my pet is human or my soul mate is a cat. When I talk to Teie, he adds a third possibility: “Not all cats respond to this.”

The success of his animal tunes, which has led to academic articles, has also attracted scientific interest. Can music help soothe abused animals? Can it enhance captivity breeding programs, which would turn Teie into something of a Barry White in the animal kingdom?

To help solve such riddles, Teie hopes to create a non-profit arm in the future.

But his first priority is to build a viable business by meeting the demands of cat, horse and dog owners, likely in that order due to variations within the canine species: “I’m afraid that writing music for dogs will involve writing terrier music and Labrador music and Chihuahua music. That will hold things up.”

What has he learned about humans from animal music? The lifelong musician recalls hearing the monkeys make an “all clear” signal that was eerily familiar because it was the E-flat major scale.

“It was so shocking to hear this,” Teie says. “I just had to sit down. We thought we invented E-flat major. But here it was, so very clear. It highlights commonalities that I think are important. It opens so many questions, including philosophical ones, of how we communicate and how similar we really are.”

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